Friday, September 30, 2011

Google is launching a real-time data feature in its Analytics offering.With Google Analytics Real-Time, users will have the ability to see active visitors on the sites they measure, providing very powerful insights into the social media response they are generating. Google's instant statistics, for example, could indicate how well an individual tweet performed in relation to its ability to drive site traffic or conversions. Another suggestion is to use the Real-Time reports to make sure that campaign tracking is correctly implemented.

While the Real-Time reports are not yet currently available to everyone (request early access here), the reports are presently available in the Dashboards tab and will be moving to the Home tab in the new interface release next week.

The response so far from Google Analytics users? Very, very positive.

The web is getting faster, and not just the speed of the pages, but also the speed of change. Before, it was fine to build a website and modify it only when new products were launched. All of us avid Analytics users know that’s just not good enough. We need to be constantly on the lookout for problems and opportunities.

Currently, Google Analytics does a great job analyzing past performance. Today they are very excited to bring real time data to Google Analytics with the launch of Google Analytics Real-Time: a set of new reports that show what’s happening on your site as it happens.

Measuring social media impactOne way that I like to use these reports is to measure the immediate impact of social media. Whenever we put out a new blog post, we also send out a tweet. With Real-Time, I can see the immediate impact to my site traffic.

For example, last week they posted about the latest episode of Web Analytics TV and also tweeted about the post. By campaign tagging the links we shared, we could see how much traffic each channel is driving to the blog as it happened. We could also see when we stopped receiving visits from the tweet, which helps know when to reengage.

Campaign measurementAnother way I’m using Real-Time is to make sure campaign tracking is correctly implemented before launching a campaign. When getting ready to launch a new campaign it’s critical to make sure your measurement plan is working before you start driving visitors to the page. With the Real-Time reports you can find out in seconds whether you’re getting the data you want in Google Analytics.

Accessing Real-TimeYou’ll find the Real-Time reports only in the new version of Google Analytics. If you’re not already using the new version, you can start by clicking the “New Version” link in the top right of Google Analytics. Real-Time reports are in the Dashboards tab (though they will move to the Home tab in the updated interface next week) . You will have access to Real-Time reports if you are an Administrator on your Analytics account, or if you have access to a profile without profile filters. Real-Time does not support profile filters.

We would love to hear about how you are using (or planning to use) Real-Time, so please share in your comments.

Freelancer.com is giving Web employers a flexible new way to hire from its pool of nearly 3 million registered professionals by adding hourly projects to its fixed-price offerings. Businesses can hire freelancers for short or long-term projects, vary their working hours from one week to the next, and pay only for the hours completed as they are invoiced.The new model also launches with the online outsourcing industry’s lowest commission structure, starting at just 3 percent.

“Other platforms charge up to 11 percent or more for hourly work,” says Freelancer.com chief executive Matt Barrie. “With commissions for freelancers starting at 3 percent for our $24.95 monthly gold membership, we put more money in the pockets of freelancers. It’s a hiring solution with greater flexibility and increased earning opportunities, and enables employers to hire freelancers they trust on an ongoing basis.”

Sydney, Australia-based Freelancer.com connects over 2.8 million professionals from all over the world. Employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software, writing, data entry, sales and marketing, accounting and legal services. The average job is under U.S. $200, making Freelancer.com extremely cost effective for small businesses.

Here is a Scrip from there Blog: We’ve just launched hourly projects and it will revolutionize the way you get projects done on site. Starting today you can hire, and get paid, by the hour on Freelancer.com! Freelancers, keep more money in your pockets by doing hourly projects with the lowest commission rate in the industry- only 3% for gold members ($24.95/mo). This reduces your commissions paid by up to 70% compared to some other, random sites.

We listened carefully to our community and launched hourly projects so you get the best value at the lowest possible cost, and here’s what we came up with:

Hire by the hour – Employers can hire Freelancers for long and short term jobs and pay them for the hours they work.

Flexible hours – Employers, you can vary the number of hours your Freelancer works from week to week. Freelancers, in turn, are freed up for other projects and earning opportunities.

Hire the right Freelancer – Find the right person for the job, from among 2.8 million registered professionals, across a range of different rates and skill levels. Freelancers can increase their hourly rate and income with experience, and develop their skills by taking Freelancer.com exams.

Easy Invoicing – Our invoicing system is quick and simple to use. Freelancers can simply enter a description of the task performed, the number of hours and a rate, and an invoice is quickly produced. You can add other expenses that don’t relate to work, such as the purchase of a piece of software or stock image. All your invoices are stored on-site as PDFs for easy record keeping.

When you submit a video that is eligible for monetization, YouTube will place ads inside or near the video. You will earn a share of the revenue that is generated from ad impressions occurring when these videos are viewed.

How much will I earn?

There's no precise answer, because your earnings will depend on a number of factors. The two key factors are the type of ads and the pricing of ads appearing with your videos. The best way to find out how much you'll earn is to sign up and start monetizing your videos. There's no cost, no obligation, and getting started is quick and easy.

What types of videos are eligible?

The basic guidelines are simple: for a video to be eligible, you must own worldwide distribution rights to everything in the video and it must abide by our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.

This means you have created everything in your video yourself, and you did not sell exclusive commercial usage rights to someone else. If your video contains content created by someone else, you must have their written permission to use and make money from it.

Examples of videos that could be eligible

You filmed your cat and there is no background music.

Your video contains royalty-free music, and you can prove commercial rights using direct links to the song and applicable license.

Your friend's band wrote and recorded a song for your video and states in writing that you can use and make money from it.

Which videos are NOT eligible?

Your video is not eligible if it contains content that you didn't create or get permission from its creator to use. You need to be able to show written permission for the following video elements:

Sunday, September 25, 2011

We're going to be hearing a lot about social networks in the coming days with Google+ finally opening up to the public and Facebook making several big changes, and this post is no exception.Coinciding with the public opening of Google+ is a new feature on all display ads that will be served through the Google Display Network, which currently holds about 15 percent of the online ad network marketing share. Starting in early October, all of these advertisements will come with a +1 button attached to them, allowing users to recommend the ads to their friends on Google+. Google has already been using this button so that Plussers can recommend content, search results and websites.

Google will start taking these recommendations into account when they are serving ads, so if a user takes the time to endorse a particular advertisement, that ad will have a much better chance of showing up on Web pages (served by the Google Display Network) that their friends visit, as well.

According to Google, "The Google Display Network gives ads that have been recommended an extra boost by including them in the auction for any page a friend visits."

All in all, this should be very useful for advertisers, as users are probably going to be less likely to ignore ads that have been recommended by their friends, which puts more of an actual social spin on the social media side of advertising.

This is all part of an attempt by Google to "extend the +1 buttons as broadly as possible," which is something that only Google can really do, since no other advertising networks have any kind of social networking outlet near what Google has accomplished with Google+. There is even talk that they are looking to make the button available to ads outside of the Google Display Network.

Of course, it's beneficial for Google, too, as it can now collect data about the effectiveness of these ads, even if it doesn't get money from the advertisers. Eventually, this will probably lead to improved relevance and clickthrough rates for the ads that are sold.

According to Google, within the next several weeks, all US advertisers will see the +1 buttons added to their ads. Currently, there is no way to opt-out of this feature. The names of connections that recommend the ad will be listed below the creative. Advertisers will not be charged when users click a +1 button. Google also promises to share +1 button data for both organic and paid search results.

Potential Impact of The +1 Button

While it is too early to know what the exact impact the new button will have on the performance of the sponsored ads on Google, here are a few things advertisers should consider:While the quality of search results is paramount to Google, the company will never do anything to jeopardize its major source of revenue.

Remember how Google Instant Search was supposed to change everything about the search behavior of its users? After hundreds of articles full of dire predictions, the impact of the new feature ended up being negligible. While a drastic step for Google, +1 is unlikely to have a dramatic impact on AdWords advertisers.

If there is any impact, it will probably be most pronounced with the click-through rates.It is a rule of thumb that anything that helps an ad standout will have a positive impact on CTR. For example, Google claims that the Google Checkout icon lifted CTR by 10%. The +1 button is different in that every advertiser will display one. It’s the engagement with the ad and the advertiser’s website that will make all the difference. Google visitors, viewing a search results page, would see the names of their connections that have +1’d an ad appear right under it, grabbing their attention.

+1’d ads will likely make more of a difference for generic terms, where brand affiliation is weaker. For queries that have a branded term, the searcher has a much better idea of what he or she is searching for and tends to look for the listing of the company website first.

Both the creatives and the landing pages will have to be built with the Google +1 social layer in mind. Just like with other aspects of social media marketing, website visitors will have to be engaged enough to +1 the content, which would most likely translate back into more exposure for the ads on the search result pages.Google +1 button is just another step in the path to convergence of search and social. Social media will continue to gain in importance as a quality signal for search results. For AdWords advertisers, these changes mean that writing an ad copy and building a list of keywords might not be enough. As a campaign’s performance becomes more and more dependent on the channels and signals outside search, a comprehensive strategy that incorporates search, social media and content development will have to be developed in order to succeed.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

There are two generally opposed schools of thought when it comes to free website building tools and services. The first is of the mindset that you get what you pay for; that unless you hire a professional design and development team, your business website is likely to fall short of expectations. The second theory takes a more open approach; that free website builders provide the ideal solution for constructing new sites quickly and without the headaches and costs associated with a typical site launch.

The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle. There can be pitfalls, to be sure, but perfectly capable, attractive and user-friendly sites are definitely attainable through the use of free website builders, especially for Web pros who have a little bit of design knowledge and know what they’re looking for. Below are some of the top providers in today’s marketplace.

Moonfruit You don’t have to have any design or development experience to build a successful business site with Moonfruit, but a trained eye will definitely come in handy when perusing the company’s massive library of images, backgrounds, templates and animations. Moonfruit gives its clients complete control of the look of their Web and mobile sites, allowing them to lay images on top of one another, crop and animate them, make them transparent and choose from countless fonts and colors. In addition to the free package are basic ($5.40 per month), premium ($10.80), business ($22.50) and reseller ($45) packages.

Yola This website builder offers hundreds of different free styles, navigations, widgets and images, and all Yola websites come with its powerful blogging platform to help clients build and stay in touch with an audience. Yola’s free package comes with an array of easy-to-use, drag-and-drop sitebuilding tools, unlimited bandwidth and award-winning customer support, and premium packages range from less than $100 per year to close to $500 per year.

Jimdo The free accounts from Jimdo offer numerous designs to choose from, fast customer support, 500MB of storage and PayPal, SEO, blogging, Flash and RSS Feed functionalities. The Pro account is $5 per month and includes a domain, email, 5GB of storage, meta tags, a logo and newsletter system, while the $15 per month business account features two domains, 20 email accounts and numerous other premium features.

SnapPages All the SnapPages applications are created with a user interface that makes all of the core functions easily visible and obvious to use, and everything is stored online so that clients can access the tools from anywhere. The free account is called SnapPages Personal, but the Pro account starts at $8 per month and includes unlimited pages, custom domain names, 10GB of storage and advanced analytics and SEO tools.

Wix Wix is another do-it-yourself free online website building tool that lets users create and customize their own professional sites. Built with a powerful, user-friendly interface, Wix gives clients total control over their designs without having to be fluent in coding or programming. The free account comes with a domain and $125 worth of Google and Facebook advertising vouchers, and the premium accounts range from just over $4 per month to about $16 per month.

Bonus Free Website Builders:

vFlyer Designed for the less technical professionals among us to create and showcase their marketing content to promote residential homes, apartments, vacation rentals, autos and services listings, vFlyer’s fill-in-the blank template approach has enabled tens of thousands of people to create single-listing websites, email flyers, print flyers and Craigslist ads, and vFlyer automatically distributes the ads to leading marketplaces such as Google Maps, Yahoo Real Estate, Hotpads, Oodle, Trulia, Zillow and more.

CurationSoft This service reduces the time it takes to find, review and include content from sources in blog posts and on social media. Most marketers find that they can post more often, gather more search rankings and increase the size of their audience through the use of CurationSoft.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

It's officially time for Google+ to go to the next level, and they made a big first step by (finally) releasing the first documents of the Google+ API on its new Google+ Platform Blog.

The G+ team claims that this is "just the beginning" of opening up their platform to outside developers.They clearly lay out their policies for independent developers in their blog, which is best summed up with their three primary principles: put the user first, be transparent and respect user data.

Google+ is now considerably closer to becoming a legitimate challenger for Facebook's social networking crown, although they're clearly taking it slow and practicing caution in choosing what they release at the moment.

Despite the limited release of only the public data aspects of the API, this seems to be enough to tide over the hungry developers who have been hotly anticipating the information so that they can start working with Google+.As of now, only information on public data has been, well, made public, and because it's based on open, public data, it's really easy for developers to authorize apps. Who is excited about this big news from Google+?

Let's Go Public: Google+ gives users full control over their information, supporting everything from intimate conversations with family to public showcases and debates. This initial API release is focused onpublic data only — it lets you read information that people have shared publicly on Google+. For example, if you want to get my profile information, you can use the people.get method by sending the following HTTP request:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/108189587050871927619?key=yourAPIKey

which returns the following JSON encoded output (excerpted for brevity):

Similarly, you can get a list of my most recent public posts by using the activities.list method:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/108189587050871927619/activities/public?key=yourAPIKey

Because we’re starting with public data only, you simply need to register your app before making requests. And if you aren't yet sure which Google+ user is running your app (for example, because they're installing it for the first time), then you can use the new plus.me OAuth2 scope to ask the user who they are.

After your application has requested this scope, you can use the special “me” identifier rather than the long numeric identifier:

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Building a successful business is every entrepreneur's goal—but only 1 in 12 succeed in doing it. The Startup Genome project analyzed data from 3,200 companies to explore why so many startups fail. This is very helpfull for many of us willing to setup our web hosting and domain registrar or even other companies related to Web. So thought it is a good data to share with all of you.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

As if basking in the glow of her fabulous wedding wasn’t enough to keep Kim Kardashian smiling, the newlywed has another reason to party today: She’s officially crossed the 10 million follower line on Twitter.Kim officially joined Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga in 10,000,000 land, and she’s celebrating by giving back to her followers with a whole lot of giveaways. Kim tweeted on Monday morning:”OOOMMMGGG I just realized that I hit 10 MILLION FOLLOWERS! Words can’t even begin to express the love I feel for all of u!!! …. I gotta do something special for u guys! Let me think of something fab to show my appreciation!!!!”

Well, now she’s making good on that. On her blog, Kim laid out the framework for some amazing giveaway opportunities, saying:

I want to give away 10 $1,000 gift certificates to Dash, 10 free 1 month memberships to ShoeDazzle.com, 10 pairs of Skechers ShapeUps, 10 pieces of Belle Noel jewelry, 10 Kardashian Kollection for Sears pieces and 10 bottles of my fragrance!!! I’m going to be picking followers at random over the next week, so keep a look out to see if I pick you!

Are you following Kim on Twitter? If not, get in on the action and relive some of her greatest TwitPics in the gallery above. Do you think really Celebrities make big on Social Network Sites how do you think normal folks gain fan following in a less time, have some tips share it in the post and to relieve your eyes for now some gorgeous picture of this hot women.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Optimizer for Twitter is a brand new SaaS platform that makes leveraging the reach and growth of Twitter to engage more customers and drive more conversions a much easier task for both product and corporate marketers.

The platform works by predicting and measuring the activities that have the highest impact and then delivers the user real-time actionable recommendations, which makes it possible for everyone from novice to expert social media marketers to measure and improve their contribution to marketing performance. This is the first and only social media marketing platform to integrate real-time analysis with support on what and when to tweet and which users to target.

A unique competitive benchmarking engine drives Optimizer for Twitter, which, in addtion to real-time predictions and recommendations, also helps to compose and schedule tweets for directing the right message at the right time. In this sense, it's sort of like a Hoot Suite that gives you advice, the Alfred to your Batman, if you will.

Optimizer for Twitter also aids marketers by watching their stream and pointing out the most influential and highest-trending tweets with which to engage. All of this allows marketers to drive, measure and improve their Twitter campaigns in a single management platform.

A 30-day free trial of Optimizer for Twitter is available (for qualified marketing organizations) by clicking here.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

As online marketers become more aggressive with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns, there can become a point at which businesses begin to over-optimize. When focusing purely on SEO, many companies lose sight of the end goal, which is to provide information to users. Even when you are following all of the more recognized SEO rules, when is optimization overdone and how can you prevent this from happening on your website? Are there Tsunami warning indicators to get out of the game before Google’s next Panda or Farmer update? And how do you find the ideal balance for your site, not overdoing SEO but also not leaving organic search traffic to your competitors?

High Tech Meets High Touch

In the last few years, savvy marketers have learned that sometimes less really is more when it comes to website optimization. It has become too overblown for its own good. There are clear indicators that it is time to get back to basics, be true to your brand and serve as that expert source, while not adding to the clutter.

As the SEO market has matured over the last 15 years, many advances have enabled online marketers to make smart decisions based on usable data. Many SEO enhancements have revolutionized the way we think about online marketing, and how we help educate consumers while personalizing their online experience.

But at what point does this cross the line and get too tangled up in itself? How you use tools to ensure that your website is found by the right audience at the right time and in the right place is part science, part art and part human nature — a blending of high tech and high touch.

To help you drive a balanced SEO campaign, we offer a few observations as well as tips to tuck into your hip pocket. We will help you recognize the signs that indicate you are about to jump the SEO shark. Search engines continue to release updates, and each one of them will have an impact on your website’s success.

What Rules?

In the beginning, there were keywords — and they were good. Along came spiders, ’bots and other Web crawlers and indexes. Then page ranking. Algorithms and meta-tags. And they, too, were good.

Companies aimed to use the right keyword mix, building them into a campaign’s design, even modifying HTML code to get their websites to appear at the top of searches. An entire SEO/SEM industry has grown up in a remarkably short period of time to help companies navigate this strange new world. Specialists would offer their services to companies, and the rallying cry became “optimize everything”: websites, news releases, advertising, articles, videos and shopping carts.

People became quite giddy with each new optimization discovery. There was no end to the madness.

Spamdexing, or black hat SEO, was inevitable because there were no specific rules at that time. As search engines recognized the false rankings were often caused by data manipulation, they developed more sophisticated algorithms and approaches to rank content and to out those dabbling in what became known as black hat SEO practices.

Stuffing, Cloaking and Link Building

Companies started using so many keywords, also known as keyword stuffing, that it became impossible to read. Some tried cloaking, which is attempting to make keywords invisible to the reader. Through the phases of SEO, it reached a critical point where a majority started to abuse it, losing sight of how much is too much.

Most recently, search engines said the more links the better, that they provided an authority to a site. So build links is what the marketers did. With link juice as the currency of SEO, marketers paid for, posted and exchanged links like mortgage-backed securities until the search engines noticed. Search engines realized that a big link budget could really impact results, and a new set of rules was born. JC Penney, being one of the most infamous recent cases of questionable link building/buying practices, was made an example of to deter others from contributing to the proliferation of spammy links.

Content for Content’s Sake

Noticing a pattern yet? The search engines went on to say that content-rich sites are good, and more keywords are good. So, create is what the content marketers did; some using automation, some just hiring writers — not experts — to pump out loads of content around keywords.

As a result, “content farms” such as About.com sprang up, featuring a page on just about every topic under the sun. These sites became mammoth, providing hundreds of pages of keyword-rich but often shallow and, even in some cases, inaccurate content. This has made it difficult for smaller, more authoritative sites to be found. Also, marketers forgot the most important thing — users want quality content.

Google introduced its Panda update earlier this year to combat low-quality content and those that produce it. If weak content is discovered on your site, Google will now pull down rankings of the entire site. Next, Google is going after content scrapers or scraper sites that copy content for use on their own websites without linking, attributing or acknowledging the original sources.

The New SEO World — The Way Forward

You can’t blame marketers for being confused, but it’s clear that companies forgot that they first are made up of humans working for humans. Marketers would do well to reduce search optimization fat to help users actually find the information they want them to find.

The truth is that it is really competitive out there, so the best thing that you can do is to be strategic and use your resources wisely. Set reasonable goals and understand that SEO is a long-term investment that will continue to evolve. We recommend the following strategies:

Diversity of approach: Use different tactics without focusing on one thing, even if it appears to be working well. Search engines “appreciate” diversity in link building, along with quality content written for human beings, not ’bots. SEO changes all the time, so what works today may not work tomorrow.

Write for people — optimize later: It is possible to overoptimize. When you lose sight of your intended audience: your customers, your readers -— and what is important to them -- because you want to please Google, you hurt yourself. Think about the person who will read and be motivated by your information.

Test, and test again: Don’t be afraid to test new methods and discover new techniques because search engines are changing every day. Just don’t throw everything that has been working for you out of the window and similarly evaluate old tactics to ensure that they are still effective.

International search requires special consideration: This will depend on the dominant search engines in a given country or market and how they work, including culture and language. Research and understand those parameters.

Use the right tools: SEO tools are advancing every day to help marketers be strategic and make informed decisions. Take advantage of tools that help save time, provide insight and keep up with the ever-changing search engines.

Finally, remember when you were in school you were told to write about what you know and write from the heart? The same rule applies when successfully writing — and optimizing — for the Web.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

1&1 Internet Inc., the worldwide Web hosting company, announced this week two new feature upgrades for their successful 1&1 MyWebsite product.

MyWebsite offers users industry-specific templates for well over 200 types of businesses and is, according to 1&1, ideal for small businesses that have an outdated website, or none at all. Each template comes adorned with individual text, picture and design modules that make it easy for computer users of any skill level to create a professional-looking website in just a couple of minutes.

Now, this helpful product has been made even better with a pair of new, useful upgrades.The first is that every MyWebsite site can now be optimized to display on smartphones. As you probably know, smartphones are rapidly gaining in popularity, with 40 percent of current mobile users over 18 in the U.S. now operating them. And now, MyWebsite site owners can make their pages easily viewable on these nifty handheld devices. This new feature identifies the mobile device being used when the page is accessed and will automatically customize it for display, which means that potential customers can now access your content on-the-go, increasing the chance of sales for the owner.

It should be noted that in addition to the growing number of consumers using smartphones, recent IDC research shows that in the fourth quarter of 2010, smartphones surpassed global PC shipments for the first time ever, which may be an indicator that mobile devices are becoming the primary method for accessing the Internet for many users. The second hot, new feature is a social media interface that will automatically and seamlessly connect your business with Facebook and Twitter. This will allow owners to inform visitors about new offers or news easily through both their primary website and their social media presence. This interface also gives users a lot of flexibility, such as making it possible for companies to include recommendations from other social platforms in their website and/or add a "Follow" or "Like" button.

In the end, these upgrades will allow SMBs using MyWebsite to benefit from the popular and important trends of mobile Web and social media in a way they were never able to before.Users interested in trying out 1&1's MyWebsite can try a risk-free 30-day trial. After that, users can move up to the entry-level, Plus or Premium packages, the lowest of which starts at just $9.99 a month. The smartphone optimization is only available in Plus and Premium packages ($19.99 and $29.99 a month, respectively), but the social media interface is available with all of them. (Note: Current customers can now use both features for no additional fee.) Also, 1&1 also rolled out 30 new layouts for their Plus and Premium packages, increasing the flexibility and customization of website creation for users.